Within minutes of the river landing, off 46th Street in Manhattan, ferry crews who regularly take commuters across the Hudson were plucking shivering passengers from the wings of the sinking aircraft, an Airbus A320.

On one of the coldest days of winter, with the temperature around 20 degrees and an icy wind blowing, other survivors were pulled from the 41-degree water around the plane. New York City Fire Department and Coast Guard vessels arrived. Police divers entered the submerged fuselage, confirming the improbable: Everyone had made it out.

The passengers were taken first to ferry terminals in New Jersey and New York City, then to various hospitals for observation and for treatment of hypothermia, cuts and bruises, authorities said. The most seriously injured person appeared to be a woman with two broken legs, said Helen Rodriguez, a paramedic.

Government officials and passengers alike offered praise for pilot Sullenberger, a veteran flier from California.

"It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure everybody got out," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at an evening news conference.

The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating, but initial reports suggest the plane's engines were damaged by birds shortly after takeoff from La Guardia at 3:26 p.m.

Sullenberger reported a "double bird strike," meaning each engine was hit, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Church said Sullenberger, then over northern New Jersey, was directed to land at nearby Teterboro Airport. Shortly afterward -- some five minutes after takeoff -- the plane went down in the Hudson.

Witnesses described a remarkably controlled descent.

"It was surreal. There was no bang, no splash," said Susan Ascolese, who watched from the window of her penthouse apartment in North Bergen.

She said she saw rescue boats launch immediately from shore, swarming toward the plane "like ants on bread."

Ascolese said she rushed to the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal in Weehawken, where she saw the survivors arriving.

"The first three I saw were in shock," she said. "They looked like they were frozen from the dead."

Doctors at various hospitals said mild hypothermia appeared to be the most common injury among the passengers.

At Manhattan's Roosevelt Hospital, Rodriguez and another emergency medical technician, Mike Benny, said they brought in a 23-year-old man who was plucked from the river in his underwear.

"He was worried his clothes would have weighted him down while he was in the water," Rodriguez said.

The man, who was not identified, told the EMTs he was asleep on the plane and was awakened by the sound of people running up and down the aisle.

"He said he heard people yelling there was a fire, and that they were looking for a fire extinguisher. Then the plane went down," Rodriguez said.

The survivor, she said, told her the plane filled quickly with water, and that scuba divers came just in time to bring him out.

"He kept saying over and over, 'I can't believe I'm here,'" Rodriguez recalled. The man, from Long Island, was on his way to a birthday celebration, she said.

Benny said the survivor seemed okay en route to the hospital.

"He complained of pain, but he was more concerned about calling his mother to let her know that he was all right," Benny said.

Kolodjay, the passenger who saw the engine on fire, said passengers began to pray as soon as Sullenberger told them the plane would have to ditch. After several terrifying moments, the plane hit the water hard.

"It was intense. It was intense," said Kolodjay, a resident of Norwalk, Conn., traveling to meet friends for a golf outing. "You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing."

Once in the water, he said, passengers began making their way toward the exits.

"There was a lady with her baby, and she was trying to crawl over the seats. And I said, 'Women and children first.' She got off," Kolodjay said.

David Sanderson, a North Carolina resident who had been visiting New York on business, called the scene inside the plane "controlled chaos" after the splashdown.

"Some people were climbing over the seats," said Sanderson, 47, who hit his head "pretty hard" on the seat in front of him when the plane struck water.

As Sanderson climbed from the plane -- one of the last people off -- the water was already above his knees, he said last night from his hospital bed at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen.

Dozens of people crowded together on the wings as the rescue boats approached and the plane slowly sank. Kolodjay said it took only three or four minutes for the first boat to arrive. That was good, he said, because "the water started to fill up rapidly."

One of the 148 passengers on the plane, Jeff Kolodjay 31, Norwalk, Conn., described hearing "a loud boom" and then, he said, "I saw fire."

Joe Hart, 50, an investment-firm salesman from Massapequa, N.Y., said his fellow passengers were, for the most part, "pretty collected" as the rescue boats approached.

"I knew I was safe," he said. "The big guy upstairs didn't want me."

Gov. Jon Corzine said last night that by all accounts, the passengers appeared to have avoided panic and worked together to save themselves.

"The people inside the plane pulled together," Corzine said during a visit to Palisades Medical Center.

He said a young mother and her baby, whom he had already visited, were "both doing great."

"You'd never know the baby had been through this kind of ordeal," Corzine said.

GROWING HAZARD

If a bird strike is confirmed to have caused yesterday's incident, it is one more example of what aviation officials call a growing problem across the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration says there were about 65,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the United States from 1990 to 2005, or about one for every 10,000 flights.

In 1995, a U.S. Air Force AWACS plane crashed after hitting a flock of Canada geese, whose population has exploded across North America. All 24 people on board died.

The A320 is a widely used, medium-range passenger jet used around the world. More than 1,900 A320s are in service with 155 airlines.

The twin-engine jet entered service in 1988. It typically can seat 150 passengers in a two-class cabin layout and has a range of 3,000 nautical miles.

During the 20-year history of the Airbus there have been eight fatal crashes, the worst accident coming in 2007. All 186 passengers and crew members and 12 people on the ground died when a Tam Airlines jet ran off the runway at São Paulo-Congonhas Airport in Brazil.

Last year, a United Airbus A320 flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport experienced multiple avionics and electrical failures, including loss of all communications, shortly after taking off. The plane returned safety with no injuries to the 107 passengers and crew members and no damage to the aircraft.

If you witnessed the crash, call The Star-Ledger newsroom (800) 350-4169.